


Traveling with Wolves

by Mauisse_Flowers



Series: Living with Monsters [1]
Category: Underworld (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Self-Insert, blaming amusewithaview, lucian survived the silver nitrate bullets, vampires and lycans were never outed to humans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-18 22:58:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13691616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mauisse_Flowers/pseuds/Mauisse_Flowers
Summary: Sometimes when you get to finally hike across Europe, you befriend the most unlikely of people.





	Traveling with Wolves

**Author's Note:**

> [I BLAME AMUSEWITHAVEW OKAY](http://lucid-dreamer-dreams.tumblr.com/post/168200468476/akhmenrah-or-lucian)
> 
>  
> 
> And here's a playlist too! [playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDtyiKitDIvKnFCDF9_iYs4Su2EWbP0lh&jct=KC19Xctxfa0FFRGb9QHSmT1QCdiTPg)

Hannah meets Lucian on accident while backpacking through Europe before her big move to New York. Sure, it was 2020 and cars were a thing, but Hannah had wanted to hike Europe and the US mountain ranges since before she was born. Her promotion to curator at the American Museum of Natural History happened to give her the perfect reason to do this. Better to know the world around her so she could talk about her country without bias.

The young woman finds a little hotel in the countryside of Hungary and soon as she steps in the door has her phone out, opening her Duolingo to practice her Hungarian before attempting to order some food and a room, when she bumps a shoulder. Immediately flustered, Hannah puts away her phone to apologize.

She meets the darkest, hardest, _bluest_ eyes she’s ever seen set in a tanned face softened by a beard and forgets to speak. Then- realizing she’s staring- she squeaks out, words strangled by the sudden shout of _danger_ in her mind and veins, “ _(1)Bocsánat. Bocsánatot kérek._ ”

He raises an eyebrow, eyes still dark and hard, and rattles something off Hannah is _pretty sure_ is meant to be “it’s fine,” and she decides to tack on, “ _(2)Nem tudok jól magyarul._ ”

There’s a pause and a brief flash of realization in his eyes before he gives a single nod. When he next speaks, his voice is soft, deep, and more British than Hungarian. “It’s alright. Mistakes happen.” He flashes a brief smile, it almost pained. Gone quick enough to imply he wasn’t in the warmest of moods right then, if ever. “If you would like, I can help you get a room and meal for the night.”

Hannah had always been taught conflicting things. Her father always told her to never accept help from strangers. Her mother taught her to listen to her heart. Currently her heart said this man, despite making her utterly fucking terrified, was harmless and meant well. Her father was also mentally reminding her he’d traveled the seas for 20 years and knew better.

In the end, Hannah shakes her head, giving an apologetic quirk of her lips. “It’s okay. I think I can manage. It’s not my first night getting room and board.”

He searches her face, as if making sure she was truthful, then tilts his head to her. “I’m Lucian.”

Lucian holds out his hand. Hannah gives it a brief glance, then takes his hand. “I’m-” Her voice hitches when he brings her hand up and kisses her knuckles. She forgets to breathe at the look he casts over her knuckles, a gentle and almost puppyish look, with a hint of swagger. Swallowing, the sound audible in her ears, she manages in a breathy whisper, “Hannah.”

 _What the fuck, what the_ **_fuck, what the FUCK_** _. Who fucking_ **_does_ ** _that?_ **_WHO?_ ** _Chivalry is dead, dude. Please don’t bring it back, my heart couldn’t take this being a regular thing._

“It was a pleasure to meet you.”

Lucian releases her hand. It drops limply to her side. With another tilt of his head, he moves past her and out the door of the little hotel. Hannah stands there for another minute, whole body trembling, and then remembers what she was there for. Food and shelter. Necessities.

_Let's do this brain. Don’t fail me, Duolingo._

* * *

A couple weeks later, having successfully trekked through Hungary and Austria, Hannah is in Gechingen, Germany, staying with extended family on her aunt’s side. Brian and Elise love having her around the house, able to keep the kids busy if she decided to take out a board game or indulge in the play battles the older two, Nathan and Warren, get up to, so long as the youngest, Maddie, gets to play the princess.

Today, however, Hannah hitched a ride up into Triberg. She had gone to Germany three years previous with her brother, aunt, and uncle. Coming on her own, relying on her own self, made the entire experience more enjoyable, if a little lonely. But the quiet did her good, walking the mountain trails provided by the little park at the tip of Triberg, using her camera to snap a couple photos of the elusive, food-greedy black-tailed squirrels. She pauses somewhere on some old forgotten trail to check her camera battery and take a puff of her inhaler along with a long drink of water. The back of her legs burned and her body ached in a way only a month and a half of straight walking could do.

When she got back to America, she’d hate it, just as she had three years ago.

Tomorrow she’d go see the monastery ruins before heading out again. She’d end her trip hopefully in Norway. Big emphasis on _hopefully_. Elise had convinced Hannah to stay two days longer than she’d ever planned and now had a lot of ground to catch up on.

“So we meet again.”

Hannah whirls, staring in surprise at Lucian. He’s in the same clothes, face guarded. Though he seems just as curious to find her here as she does finding him, watching her. She takes a moment, then holds up her camera. “Seeing the sights too?”

He looks over her face, as though looking for something, and then nods. Whatever tension he held bleeds out of his shoulders. Hannah comes a little closer, shrinking the meters between them. She has to go up the steep incline she wasn’t ready for yet, and wheezes for her effort shortly after starting.

Lucian closes the distance between them after her second uneven inhale, her inhaler in his hand instead of hers and shaking it and she’s not sure when he took it from her. “You shouldn’t exercise more than your body can handle.”

She takes her inhaler back with a cross look, inhaling the nasty chemicals that near immediately open up her airways. “I’ve been doing this hiking thing for weeks.” Hannah tells him. “And I only have minor asthma. I try to avoid using this,” she holds up her inhaler, “unless I really have to.”

“You could die. If no one is around-”

Hannah steps back when he gets a bit too close, holding up a hand. He grinds to a halt, eyes dropping to her hand pressed flat to his chest before finding her eyes. “I don’t know you, dude. You don’t know me. I’ve had asthma since I was a kid and was finally diagnosed three years ago. I know my limits. Back off.”

They stand there for several long, tense moments.

“I’m sorry,” he ends up saying, and it takes her a moment to process the words. “I easily worry over people, especially those I’ve met before. However briefly it may have been.”

It sounds like a lie. Is probably a lie. Doesn’t know _why_ he lied. But she worries over people too, whether she knows them or not. So she drops her hand, puts her inhaler back in her small purse she’d brought with her.

“I’m going to finish my hike.” She tells him. “And you can’t stop me _or_ make me exceed the required amount of puffs in a given 6 hours outside of exercise.” Hannah bites her lip, remembers when he kissed her hand weeks ago and feels her heart rate jump briefly. She offers, “You can come with me. And, maybe,” and her cheeks are hot from shyness instead of the cool summer heat, “we can grab dinner, if you want.”

Lucian debates. It’s clear on his face. He’s not very good at hiding his facial expressions. His eyes are easily guarded, but his face is open to the world. When he smiles, just as pained and brief as when they first met for those several moments, Hannah wonders what happened to make him this way.

Hannah decides she’ll find out.

* * *

As it turns out, Hannah learns as they have an early dinner at the Restaurant Pfaff right in front of the Black Forest’s gates as the mid-way of the large hill, Lucian is also apparently traveling Europe. He, however, was taking a different route and didn’t carry clothes. Only money.

“That’s not good for you.” Hannah tells him, menu at her elbow. She knew what to get long before coming here. “Your skin must be really irritated.”

“Nothing I cannot handle.” He assures, watching her mouth press into a flat, unamused line.

His lips quirk a brief fraction at her worry, then he looks down at the menu.

“You’ve been here before.”

Hannah startles. “Uh, yeah. How’d you guess?”

“You haven’t glanced at the menu and several of the staff have looked at you like they know you but aren’t sure.” He explains, closing the thick black folder and setting it aside. “How often do you come here?”

“It’s my second time.” After a moment, unsure of how to explain without explaining too much, she goes on, “I visited family in here back in mid-2017. We came up here for a day. I loved every minute of it. Have craved to come back, on my own, and here I am.”

Her eyes dart away, looking at the passing people on the streets. She feels something like _shyness_ bloom in her chest.

In the sunlight, this man is beautiful. Dark pants and leather jacket with an off white button down. But she also knew he was dangerous. And cared about total strangers.

Hannah isn’t sure what to make of him.

“Why’d you come to Triberg?” She asks, turning back to him. “It’s not a normal vacation spot, despite the touristy business.”

There’s a gleam in his eye she can’t place, feels like she _should_ be able to. But can’t. It’s too foreign and new, too– she wasn’t sure. It just wasn’t recognizable to her. It did make her want to know more about him, though.

Hannah wants to know more about him, and that’s a scary thought.

“I came of my own accord. I heard of it, but had never decided to come.” He explains. His mouth does the quirk thing, right before he says, “I did not expect such lovely company when I finally did.”

She blinks, swallows a sudden lump in her throat. If she was standing, her knees may have shaken.

_Fuck he’s smooth._

Smiling, abashed, the woman laughs a small, breathy sound, thoroughly embarrassed and enamoured. Hannah wasn’t aware she was enamoured. She also didn’t know how to flirt back without being an awkward doe in an elephant’s body.

“I didn’t expect such good company either.”

Lucian keeps the conversation on Hannah through the meal, wheedling out where she’d been and her thoughts on each place. She was willing to give them, and tried valiantly to bring it back to him and the places he’d seen. It seemed, however, Lucian didn’t want to divulge anything about himself.

At the end of the meal, the bus that had brought her was readying to leave and Hannah bids him a farewell after they pay. He kisses her hand once more, eyes still bright with that unknowable gleam, and watches her step up onto her bus. His fingers, as she steps out of his reach, brush along the tips of hers and she feels like she’s stood on the edge of a precipice.

Her heart's still pounding in her ears as she sits down by a window and she thinks, if Noemi or Amber could see her, they’d be screaming she should have gotten his number.

He waves her goodbye as the bus draws away.

* * *

Hannah realizes she has a crush on the strange man the same day she steps off the boat that took her from the top of Denmark to Oslo, Norway.

And walks right into his chest.

With a small yelp, she stumbles back, rubbing her stinging nose.

“I’m so sorry!” She gives a nervous laugh, then realizes belated she spoke in English instead of Norwegian. She proceeds to curse under her breath, then begin to correct herself.

But is stopped by a laugh, deep and rumbling through her nerves, easing them. Her eyes get wide as she looks at Lucian.

“It seems we are destined to run into each other.” He tells her, and Hannah’s face flushes when he adds, “Usually literally.”

“I didn’t mean to!” Is the automatic protest, and he laughs again.

“I do not mind,” he promises, and holds out a hand. “Would you allow me to show you around? I’ve been here a week. And you did say you prefer going off script while traveling.”

She did. Very much so. This man certainly helped her with it too.

“Well,” she rolls the word along her tongue, knowing she’d already say yes, “where do you recommend?”

He grins. “The Vigeland Sculpture Park.”

Her eyes light up. “I was saving that for last!”

“Then I hope you don’t mind me taking you there first.”

It’s a long walk. It’s a pleasant long walk. Lucian offers to carry her backpack for her and she shakes her head, the weight familiar now after nearly three months.

“So you went to England?” She asks, breathing in deeply to taste the clear air. “You can’t _hike_ to England. You took a plane.”

“I did.” He nods. “Why does that matter?”

“It means you didn’t do the walking! That’s not hiking across Europe!”

He gives her a look that seems to say “oh really?” and she nods. “Other than when I landed in Bucharest, I’ve been walking and using public transport.”

“You,” he pauses, accent dipping deep before leveling back out into something understandable, “You didn’t say you started in Romania.”

“I didn’t think it relevant. The people there are nice, if a little suspicious of strangers. Which is funny when they make money off of ‘Dracula’s Castle’.” She points a finger at him. “You still broke the hiking rule.”

Despite himself, he smiles, amused by her and maybe a little enamored. “I did not think there were rules to hiking across Europe.”

“Of course there is! One, you don’t use planes. Two, have fun. Three, don’t get rides from strangers. Easy.” Hannah shrugs.

“Those don’t seem like universal rules.”

“Shows what you know.”

She’s able to get him to tell her about England. The people and the weather, the wide open countrysides that made her heart ache with longing.

“Did you visit Baker Street?”

“I didn’t.” At her playfully horrified gasp, he assures, “I’ve been before.”

“Still doesn’t excuse not going again.” Hannah shifts her body weight, shoulder bumping against his arm in a friendly gesture. He was, she assumed, close to six feet tall. 5’9 _at least_. “Handling of Watson’s wife aside, I think they’re good stories. Irene certainly leaves an impression. As does that prick Moriarty.”

Lucian looks like he’s been shot after her little bump, voice soft and tight as he says, “They are.”

Hannah peers up at him. “You okay? You sound sick.”

Lucian nods slowly, looking ahead of them. “Just fine.”

Hannah frowns, but doesn’t fight him to find out what was wrong. She didn’t know him beyond a few encounters. Technically, they were just acquaintances.

The duo reach the park by noon, and Hannah is a bit tired. But she’s also _there_ , in the largest sculpture park in the world, all created by a single man. She’s in awe, walking through.

There’s a crying, angry child in his birthday suit, a huge statue of crying children huddled together with their parents wrapped together in similar anguish. She takes photos of them, soaks up the sun that has made her once pale skin slightly golden.

Hannah drags Lucian through the park to the waterfalls she remembers reading about, and just _stares_ , remembering the sounds of the rushing water and burbling brook at their side and the birds chirping and the chattering squirrels.

“ _(3)Inima mea apeluri de la tine. Nu ştiu de ce_.” The words are so very soft, barely heard over the forest quiet.

Hannah turns to look at Lucian. She vaguely recognized what he’d said. Something about not knowing.

“What?”

Lucian looks at her, just _looks_ , and there’s pain in his expression, pure and whole and broken. It makes her heart go out to him.

“I do not know much about this park.” He lies, again.

Hannah opens her mouth to make him tell her the truth, but his eyes– for once open and bright– beg her not to. She closes her mouth. Gives a single nod.

“It’s named after Gustav Vigeland. He made every sculpture– over 200 of them– in the park.” She turns on her camera, giving the kindest smile she can manage when wearing red lipstick that day. “Can I take a photo of you in front of the waterfalls?”

“Only if I may have a photo with you.” He bargains and she agrees, taking her backpack off to set down out of the way.

He poses before her, in a loose soldier’s stance. His eyes are warm and friendly, almost like a dog’s. It’s an odd thought and she brushes it away, focusing on getting a photo of him with the right angle of light, wanting to immortalize this man in her memories in the best way she knew.

Lucian then beckons her close after a few photos, settling large, hot hands on her shoulders. Her arms are too short to get them and the falls in a shot.

“Hold on.” He murmurs.

His hands lift the camera strap from around her neck, over her head. As he does so his nails lightly graze up her nail and ruffle her hair, making her bones ache and soul quiver. Lucian wraps the camera strap around one wrist, holding the device out.

An arm curls around her middle as he curves his back, tilts his chin down to let it rest on the crown of her head. The wide palm of his hand rests on her hip, thumb dipping under her shirt to press against her soft, pudgy skin. Her back is ramrod straight at the intimacy, heart thundering and face warm. “Say cheese,” he murmurs, and she, against years of never smiling right on command, does.

Her heart tells her in a frantic whisper, _Kiss him, kiss him, kiss him!_

They step apart after a few clicks. She turns to face him and, very nearly, does as her heart urged.

He offers her camera to her, and she takes it with shaky fingers, glancing down at the photo. They stand there, smiling, looking like lovers in an embrace. Her voice trembles when she speaks, unused to feeling this way about anyone, let alone a stranger, “Thanks.”

“My pleasure, darling.”

She liked that sound of that, the way his tongue rolled the word “darling.”

Hannah could spend her whole life being called that.

 _Oh no_  her mind says.

 _Finally_ , her heart sighs.

* * *

Hannah spends the last of her week in Oslo, and most of it with Lucian.

After that moment at the falls, he is a lot more forthcoming about himself. He grew up in Romania as an orphan, taken in by a wealthy man and his daughter when young. He wasn’t treated the best by the man, but had never known any other treatment outside the kindness of his daughter.

Lucian never tells Hannah, but she can tell with the way he says Sonja’s name that they’d had something and they’d lost it. The look in his eye always says it was painful and without warning, the way he reached to touch something missing from his neck even more telling.

She isn’t sure what to tell him in these moments, so she leans heavily into his side and wraps an arm around his broad shoulders. She presses her face into his arm, eyes closed. It’s strange for her because she’s never been physically open with someone this quickly outside of a work setting or immediate friendship with another woman, unable to naturally trust most men. And yet, she will hug him and murmur,

“I’m sorry.”

It’s all she can think to tell him and it seems to help. After a moment, he eases under her touch and sighs deeply. Then he nudges her.

At her noise of question, he offers up, “Let’s see what is offered for lunch at that bistro.”

“Only if you promise to not mope. If I can’t, neither can you.”

He promises not to and he doesn’t. But it lingers for a long time, the knowledge this man had been in love and didn’t seem to have quite moved on yet. It makes her growing crush curdle like sour milk, makes her feel horrible.

But she’s only known Lucian a week and doesn’t plan to know him after.

For her last night in Oslo before she flies back to America the next morning, she decides to pull out the one thing she’d kept in the bottom of her pack, waiting for the right moment if it ever came.

She showers thoroughly at her little hotel after another day of sightseeing with Lucian and paints her lips red and lines her eyes with black, eyelids shiny with gold shadows. She leaves her hair to air dry and fluff up in the cool August air. Then she slides the scarlet, empire waist dress over her head so it rustles against her thighs and pulls on the golden two-inch heels she’d saved for a night of partying.

It feels nice to wear a dress and heels after months of jeans and shorts and tees. To be just a little more feminine than just lipstick and eyeliner. To spend her last night on her own, trying Norwegian alcohol, and listening to their music as Øyafestival kicks off with Klubbdagen. She’d planned her trip to coincide with the start of the August music festival’s pre-opening night.

Of course she’s barely out the door of the hotel, digging into her little purse for her allotted cab money to Tøyenparken, when she realizes someone is approaching her. She lifts her head, and blinks in surprise at the man she thought she’d said goodbye to a handful of hours previous.

Lucian looks a little nervous, in the same clothes she always sees him in, but his hair looks washed and he seems better groomed overall.

“Were you… were you waiting to see if I came out?”

“I wasn’t.” His response is quick. Not a nervous, lying quick. Merely correcting. “My own board is across the street. See.” He motions to a hotel similar to hers and her eyes follow where he points before going back to him.

Her shoulders, unknowingly tensed in mild alarm at the idea of him actually _stalking_ her, ease. Her heart rate calms.

“Oh.” She comes closer. “Are you going to find a place to eat?”

“Yes.” He holds her gaze as he always has, blue eyes open and like windows, matching his facial expressions. “I assume you are as well?”

“I’m going to a club, actually.” His eyes flicker down to her attire when she swishes the loose skirt and Lucian finally seems to notice just how different she is in the late evening light.

His look turns, becomes just a tad hungry, as though a man starved of food for too long a time. Hannah briefly entertains the idea of coyly walking towards a shady alcove between buildings, tugging him along silently. She has a mission and no flighty fantasies about heartbroken men would woo her away. She also wasn’t that kind of person.

“I’m going to Klubbdagen.” She explains, and his look clears after a few heavy blinks. His eyes linger on her lips a minute too long to be casual before finally, _finally_ , looking in her eyes again. “I’m probably overdressed but I’ve wanted to use this outfit for something fun. Clubbing in Norway counts.”

“You will be a gem among glass, darling.”

Hannah laughs, heart rate jumping at the name, head turning away even as her cheeks flush and she grins. “I’m not that pretty. I’d imagine I’m the fake.”

Warm, calloused fingers press against her cheek, carefully turning her face back to look at him, expecting resistance.

“I would never lie to you about something like that.” He assures, and she can feel her heart urging her forward again, urging her to kiss this man who was stupidly earnest and heartbreakingly sad underneath the charming smiles and wry humor. “You do not deserve that.”

Hannah blinks, and her eyes feel oddly wet. She wipes under her eyes and smiles at Lucian.

“Would you like to come with me? Admittance is free tonight.”

He hesitates. It’s not the first time. Hannah lets him, knowing at this point he’d say yes.

When he holds out his arm to her, she chose right. “Of course.”

When they arrive twenty minutes later, Hannah can feel the heavy beats from the street, feel them deep in her bones and heart. It was loud, and boisterous, and exactly what she’d wanted this last night. Though her company was new.

They go inside the first bar she thinks is okay. It’s not big or packed which is what she wanted. The music is still loud, lyrics incomprehensible in their foreign tongue. The heat seeps into her bones as the lights above paint her skin in a neon glow.

She glances at Lucian and he looks the definition of awkward. This isn’t his kind of place. It’s his fault for deciding to come with her, Hannah reasons.

“C’mon,” she calls over the music, “lets get a few drinks.”

The man at the bar checks Hannah’s ID but doesn’t glance twice at Lucian. She asks for the sweetest, lowest alcohol content drink he can make in messy Norwegian. Hannah had plans to drag this night out and not end it drunk. Her plane left at 10am the next morning, and she had no plans to miss it.

Lucian gently rocks sideways so he bumps her before saying, “ _(4)En øl, vennligst_.”

Hannah raises an eyebrow. “A beer? Really?”

“I’ve been told Oslo makes the best this side of Europe.” He promises. “And I do not plan to be drunk any quicker than you do. I have business tomorrow.”

“What sort of business?” She asks, as the bartender comes back with Lucian’s beer. He sets to work making her drink, her eyes lingering on the way the red wine poured and soda bubbled with it.

“I have friends I’m meeting.”

Her attention diverts to him. “I didn’t realize you had any. You never talk about them.” Her mouth quirks in the corners, showing she was joking. He smiles, a little thing, _and it lingers_. She grins at him now, surprised. “Is that a smile?”

Lifting the beer to his mouth, he takes a sip before replying. “Possibly.”

“I didn’t realize you could do more than smirk.” Hannah’s drink is passed to her, the sangria’s red dark as blood. Her nose scrunches when she notices the peach slices in it.

“Not fond of peaches?”

Hannah looks up at him. “Not really. They, hum,” her cheeks warm, realizing that while he may be a friend Lucian wasn’t aware of her odd word choices and descriptions for some things. He quirks an eyebrow at her, waiting for the explanation. “They taste like death and decay to me.”

His laugh is deep, reminding her of a dog’s bark. He’s grinning too, showing pearly white teeth.

“While I don’t think they taste that way, I will gladly take them from you.” He offers, taking a nearby napkin and setting it beside her drink even as he pulls at his again. “Just set them on that.”

“Okay.” She sips at her sangria, getting it down so she can easily pick out the two peach slices and put them on the napkin.

“I am assuming you planned your hike to coincide with this?” Lucian motions to the dance floor and bodies pressed close, dancing.

“I did. I’ve wanted to go for years.” Hannah turns, looking at the same scene presented to them. “I don’t even like alcohol much, and this is all about getting drunk and playing loud music, but I still wanted to come anyway.” She shrugs, takes another sip of her drink as he does. “Did you plan yours to match meeting up with your friends tomorrow?”

“I did, yes.” His eyes glow bright blue from the neon lights, charm thick as he speaks. “It _was_ to be last week, but finding such lovely company happened to make me dally, though I didn’t really mind when I discovered wit to match the beauty.”

“I’m sorry for stealing you away from them.” Her apology is thin, having not known and also currently feeling a little selfish. Her knee jerk reaction in most situations where she was complemented was to deny. Lucian, however, spoke in a way, with such raw honesty and conviction, that it was impossible to not believe him.

“You’re not truly sorry.”

“No. But it’s the thought that counts.”

“I suppose so.”

He takes a peach slice and drops it on to his tongue. Lucian closes his mouth and chews, eyes on hers. When he swallows, his tongue darts out, licking his lips. Her thighs twitch and shift closed, wondering what his tongue would feel like between her legs.

Dashing the thought away like she has with others both innocent and wicked over the week, Hannah stands. She turns to face Lucian fully, quickly downing the rest of her drink before holding out a hand to him.

“Dance with me?”

He eyes it like a viper’s mouth. “I cannot dance.”

“I can’t either, unless it’s the Cha Cha Slide, Cupid Shuffle, or Soulja Boi. But you don’t see me sitting like a cranky old man, denying an offer to dance.” She waves her hand. “Dance with me, Mr. Darcy.”

Lucian appears partially insulted at the comparison as he looks from her hand to her eyes one more time, gaze narrowing. Then, after a moment more, they clear. He takes her hand, leading her out onto the dance floor.

She practically _bounces_ with glee, eyes bright. “I’ve never danced in Norway.”

“Neither have I.”

Hannah looks around at the crowd, trying to figure out how they danced. Sticking out like a sore thumb wasn’t one of her favorite things to do in countries not her own.

Her companion turns her attention back to him when he settles his hands low on her hips. Her face already feels flushed from the hot press of bodies around them, him engaging in a casual form of intimacy doesn’t help.

“Darling, go with the flow.” He tells her.

“The flow is Norwegian heavy metal remixed into ungodly screech stops with drop beats.”

“And what would you listen to in a club, darling?”

“Something you can dance to.”

His responding laugh, small and an edge wheezy, has Hannah planning to keep him laughing. This is the most laughter she’s gotten out of him in a single moment all week.

“Which is?”

“Various things. Demi Lovato, a bastardized Taylor Swift song or two, Ice Cube.” Hannah sways her hips side to side as she continues to list off artists that fit in a club. His eyes drop down, watching, and she wonders if he’s aware of his attention change. “Pretty much anything that’s heavy base, quick, and not heavy on the screaming.”

“Hm.” Lucian sways his hips too, throwing in a slight swivel that causes their lower bodies to brush.

A tiny gasp escapes the woman and she nearly bolts. The last time she’d danced with someone that wasn’t conga line, directed, or with friends was… counting back, she grimaces. Hannah was _seventeen_. And it was with her lying bitch of an ex-girlfriend.

It doesn’t help she’s never danced even vaguely this way before. It was uncomfortable. Though, getting into the rhythm was easier than she expected.

His hands slide lower, curving around to grip her ass, and grind forward. She lifts her arms, curling them around his broad shoulders, hands angling to tangle in his long, messy hair. She huffs against his mouth, groaning helplessly when a hand squeezes her ass.

Well shit, if this was dirty dancing she should have done it more often than she already did. Which was, like, _never_.

One of his hands slides up to the center of her back, splaying long, warm fingers out. His eyes, blue and glowing under the lights, are darker with blown irises.

He nudges a knee between her legs and she grinds on it, humming, grinning. Her hands shift from his hair to his shoulders as she leans back, his hand keeping her steady as she sweeps sideways before coming back up. His hand on her ass moves to her thigh, hitching up the hem of her dress, lifting her so her leg wraps around her waist. Automatically her other leg does too, leaning into him for balance. The movement is so quick, so easy, that she doesn’t expect to find herself nose to nose with him, but she is.

This close to him, bodies pressed together, Hannah can see it clear as a spring day now: the desire, the _want._ And Hannah wanted that.

Hannah wanted him.

Hannah kisses him, or maybe he kisses her. It’s unclear who initiated the kiss, but she’s giving it her uneducated all. It goes somewhat downhill from there.

They don’t find themselves fucking-against-a-wall-downhill, Hannah would sooner die of embarrassment than do that. There is a secluded corner involved, and he’s curled his hands around her face because he’s got her pinned between him and the wall. She runs her hands through his hair a lot, almost petting it, lost in the kissing and how he seems to be steadily getting drunker on her and vice versa.

She pulls her mouth from his, panting, chest heaving in what little space it has flushed against his. “I think,” her words are cut off by a little nip at her bottom lip that goes directly downwards, “we should– _oh._ ”

He nips at her neck. Then again. Just little nips in a ring around her neck and over her collarbone. It’s a sharp, brief pain that gives way to a pleasant feeling.

“We should go–” she manages after a few tries. “Back. To my place.”

Lucian’s hands slide down her body to grasp her thighs and grind against her. She keens.

His eyes, she finds when he finally let her down several minutes later, are dark, pupils nearly eclipsing his irises. His voice is wrecked, and Hannah is very pleased to know she caused it.

“Wonderful idea.”

* * *

Hannah wakes with aching thighs and a deeply satisfied moan. She stretches.

Scratch that. She _attempts_ to stretch. Arms, warm and strong and, as she’d learned, scarred, tighten around her middle, bringing her back down to the bed. Lucian, cradled between her legs and a comforting dead weight where his cheek presses against her stomach, makes a sleepy noise that reminds her of her old dog when he’d snore.

She glances at the bedside clock and sees its only 6:21. It was annoyingly early but it meant she had time to spare before her alarm went off at 7. Not much time, but enough.

With that thought in mind, Hannah reaches down to play with his hair. She smooths it down, makes little braids. She’s keeping herself idle even as her need to pee gets steadily more insistent.

At 6:40, Nature finally wins. She pats Lucian’s cheek.

“Wake up.” Her voice is still heavy with sleep, body protesting waking even as her bladder and mind said it was time to. She’d need to eat a couple B-12 gummies before she even tried to take a shower.

He snuffles, growls softly, and nuzzles her stomach. Lucian cracks open an eye, looking at her with a single sleepy blue eye.

“I have reason to believe it is early.” He huffs, own voice gruff, dragging pleasantly down her spine.

“It is.” Hannah scratches the back of his head, having found he’s fond of them, and he quietly moans. “But I gotta pee, shower, and pack. I have a 20 hour flight in a couple hours.”

Lucian stills, and Hannah has to pretend saying the words doesn’t also make her heart ache. It’s strange how quickly she’s become attached to this man. But she has.

Lucian sits up, rising from between her legs as a phoenix does ashes. Briefly, he kisses her knees. She can see the red smear of her lipstick on his chest, the hickey on his neck ringed scarlet. Her own body must look like a similar crime scene thanks to her red lipstick clinging to his own in tiny remnants. There’s no way, between their sex hair, the haphazardly discarded clothes, rumpled bed, and their own physical states for the conclusion to not be obvious.

“Would you like help to the bathroom?”

Hannah slides her legs closer to her body. Last night, she hadn’t had much of an issue cleaning up after. But, now with time for the aches to settle…

“Lemme try.” She says. “I need to be able to get through baggage claim without looking like I stuck bagged cocaine up my ass.”

It’s crass, yes. But Hannah just fucked Lucian. Thoroughly. Her friends had told her how good sex felt but she honestly hadn’t expected it to be, well, _true_. And because of that she couldn’t really imagine herself not being her typical, foul-mouthed self. Blame her dad’s 20 years in the navy for that.

Lucian, blessedly, looks more amused than anything, not a hint of appal anywhere. Which was something of a blessing as she crawls out of bed, entire lower back and thighs protesting.

Powering through it, figuring she could take Advil and maybe drink some nasty shit that would pass her out for most of the flight, Hannah swings her legs off the bed. Standing isn’t as bad as usually stated to be.

Legs a little wobbly, sure, but not too bad. Lucian shifts to sit on the edge of the bed, watching her with open concern.

Hannah takes a step and doesn’t go down like a sack of potatoes. Second step is fine. It’s when she’s halfway to the bathroom her knees wobble too much, and she goes down. Lucian is off the bed in a flash, catching her.

Whoo, boy, she may have pushed herself too much.

Totally worth it.

Hannah blinks up at him. “I have Advil in my pack,” she tells him. “If I take a couple, the worst’ll fade off for a bit. Just, like, drop me off at the toilet. I don’t think I can hold it much longer.”

The fact she’d held this long was amazing.

Lucian slides an arm under her knees and across her back before lifting her up bridal style, carrying her into the bathroom. He leaves her quickly with a brief glance back, making sure she was alright.

Hannah pulls her sleep shirt over her head and tosses it onto the floor. She leans over to turn on the shower so the water could heat up, and finally relaxes back into the seat to pee.

She’s barely finished when he’s back with two Advil and a bottled water from the pack on the small kitchenette table. He passes her the Advil and opens the bottle.

“You’re strangely attentive.” Hannah can’t help but point out, throwing the pills into her mouth and taking the offered water. She swallows several mouthfuls before continuing. “And silent.”

“I’m not sure what to say.”

His eyes map her face, taking in each subtlety, trailing down to the ring of hickeys on her neck. Her right shoulder ached from where he’d bit her the last time he’d cum, strong enough to leave a bruise nearly twice its size. At the time it hadn’t hurt any worse than anything else they’d done, and now it seemed to be its own epicenter of pain the longer she was up and about.

“Well,” Hannah frowns, takes another pull of water because her mouth felt ashy with what she planned to say next. “We could, ah.”

She aborts the words ‘ _be long distance friends_ ’. It wasn’t _impossible_ . Noemi lived in California, Shenanigans lived in Germany, Tori and Meg lived in Illinois (or was it Michigan? She forgot all the time), Shuu lived in Japan for a long ass time, Cody was definitely in Illinois, and even Anna lived in Cleveland. The difference was, she’d never met them _or_ had an inclination to screw their brains out.

The man standing in front of her, nearly always with a dry wit and rare smiles, standing with lipstick stains leading downwards and a sad, knowing look? Who was as much a fan of dogs as she was? And loved German fairytales because of the darkness and their terrifying lessons? That man, who she’d learned countless other tidbits of? Hannah wanted to sleep with Lucian everyday, whether that entailed cuddling or sex or both. She wanted to meet the friends he was seeing today, and one day introduce him to hers. If she tried she could envision the town he told her where he’d grown up, and wanted to know if her idea of it was the same as its truth.

Hannah wanted so much stupid domestic shit and she didn’t know where it was coming from so suddenly, but she had a life to go back to. One she _knew_ he didn’t fit into. Not like she wanted. Hannah wasn’t her friend Annie, who’s entire lovelife had to fall apart thanks to a bad decision and an asshole coworker before she could find the right one.

Hannah looked at Lucian and saw a lot of wants but nothing that could be a reality. This entire hike from Romania to Norway had been to find herself, cross something off her bucket list, and say goodbye to what life she had before her promotion. She had definitely found who she wanted to be along the way, and how to achieve it, but Lucian couldn’t fit with that change.

Not without making him change too, anyway.

“We could exchange numbers.” She offers lamely, aware of how tired she must look. B-12 gummy vitamins or not, Hannah didn’t look so haggard in the morning unless sick or aware of a bad choice she has to make. The idea of turning this good man out of her life after he’d just entered was a classic bad choice of hers.

Lucian, for his part, is even quieter after that, if even possible. The only sound in the small space is the shower’s quick _pit, pit, plink_ on the steamed basin floor. He opens his mouth and quiet words stumble out, “Do you really want that?”

“Not really.” Her eyes dart away, unable to look at him as she speaks her mind and be an adult. “I’d honestly rather stay, or you come with me.” _But it wouldn’t work. I have too much to do, and you might too. I couldn’t._

“You _could_ stay.” Her head whips around, surprised at him. “I’m not sure what is waiting for you in America,” and he kneels at her side, taking her empty hand in his, hope lighting up his eyes, “but I would gladly have you here.”

He squeezes her hand, expression painfully sweet and honest. “I wouldn’t be able to go back with you. For a long time. If ever. I have so much to complete here.”

Her throat clogs, choking. “I have so much back home that I can’t give up.”

His look falls, looking like he was being stabbed in the chest with each word, “Then I suppose… there isn’t much compromise to be made?”

Hannah closes her eyes, wondering where this visceral need to stay, _to cling_ , had come from so suddenly. Her entire life she’d gotten used to not holding onto much, to giving up anything that should have mattered to her. Her only constants had been her books, and once upon a time her dog Spot, everything else easily given up and replaceable because they’d had to be.

She drops the water bottle, plastic crinkling and water splashing inside as it hit the floor and shook before deciding to stay upright. Her hand unheld in his curls around the back of his neck, fingers tangling in his hair.

“Take a shower with me?”

It’s half-choked off, half-begging. Lucian nods, pressing his forehead to hers. “As you wish.”

“Did you just quote _The Princess Bride_?” She laughs, bitter and hollow and pained.

Hannah didn’t understand the pain she felt. She didn’t care so much usually. But this hurt.

“What’s that?”

Hannah laughs again. Of course he hasn’t seen _The Princess Bride_. Either that or he lied.

“One of my favorite movies.” She admits. “It and _Labyrinth_.”

“I’ll be sure to watch them.”

Her heart wails. And she wants to call her family and tell them she’s never coming home. She loved Europe, always had, and maybe she loved this man and just wasn’t aware of it yet. Hannah could give up her life in America, could turn away and never go back, but her friends… her family… that _job_.

Against better judgement, Hannah kisses Lucian again. It tastes bitter and like morning breath, and something of her lingers under his tongue, but she wouldn’t change it. He kisses back, nose brushing along hers in a painfully intimate gesture.

“You need to shower and pack.” Lucian murmurs, pulling away. His eyes are bright with tears.

He helps her into the shower and it’s even harder to leave. He’s gentle, always gentle like she’s extremely fragile and maybe in these few moments she is, as he’s using her washcloth to wash her back, down her thighs, lingers at the bite on her shoulder that twinges when he kisses it. She returns the favor, makes him tilt his head forward to wash his hair, kneading his scalp, rubbing away each lipstick mark and kissing each scar she finds.

Hannah towel dries herself, wrapping the thin cloth around herself before brushing out the tangles in her hair. She offers her other towel to Lucian, watching him with a quiet that didn’t come easily to her.

“If you sit on the bed,” Lucian looks at the long, dark hair clinging to her damp skin, water slipping down the curves of her back to disappear beneath the towel, “I’ll braid it out of your face.”

Hannah turns, eyeing his hair. “Only if you let me braid yours.”

He grins. It’s broken, but not at badly as she imagined it it must feel. “Deal.”

Hannah sits with her left leg spread out so it doesn’t go numb from childhood trauma to it, right bent under her. She sits with several bobby-pins in hand as he brushes out her hair, using her towel to dry it. Then his fingers delve into her hair, pulling back plaits on the left and carefully weaving them together. He repeats the process on the right before asking for the bobby-pins. She can’t see, but can imagine the braided crown he’s made, keeping her hair out of her eyes.

Lucian brushes the free fall of her hair again with his fingers, slowly as if to remember the feeling. He leans over, the heavy scent of pine and old leather cocooning her as he presses a soft kiss to his bite mark. He pulls back an inch, lingering, breathing in deep and exhaling slowly, remembering her.

“I wish there was more time.”

His voice is shattered in a billion little pieces and Hannah can’t disagree with him. Her entire heart is still crying and aching, wanting to stay. Her mind though says otherwise, and it’s always won out in the end.

Hannah turns to Lucian, taking her brush from him as she rises onto her knees. “My turn.”

She treats his hair the same as he had hers, using her towel to dry it with pats and downward rubs. Then she brushes it out, watching the usually held down waves become more prominent.

Her hands shake as she attempts to braid his hair, and she settles on making a little one among his thick mane of hair. She kisses his head and doesn’t say anything, merely keeps her eyes closed as she leans into him and wishes for an extra second, just one more minute with this man.

 _I could love you,_ she thinks. _Unabashedly. Willingly. And I’ve never imagined myself loving anyone this way._

Letting herself have the moment, Hannah pulls away. She gathers her clothes and things and packs them away, pulling on the clothes she’d set aside before going out the night previous. She had a long flight ahead without company.

The bedside clock says it’s barely 7:30am.

Closing her eyes, Hannah takes a deep, steadying breath. She listens to Lucian move around, listens the soft sound of his shirt being pulled on, the sound of his pants zipper.

She doesn’t need to open her eyes to know when he’s in front of her.

Hannah opens her eyes, tilting her head back to look at him. He brushes a thumb across her cheek, taking with it the warm slide of a tear. His other hand raises to wipe away more tears.

She ducks her head, trying to hide. He doesn’t let her, lifting her face gently to look at him.

“I hope you live an amazing life.”

A little piece of her is being carved out with his words, being left for him to have.

“I hope you do to,” she manages.

He kisses her cheek, pulling away so slow his nose brushes hers.

“I have. And you’ve made it all the better.”

He steps back. A small thing of panic crawls up into her throat, making her grab his hand.

“Wait! Please, just… just a minute.” They stare, gauging what the other will do, and Lucian’s eyes dart to her shoulder before meeting her eyes and slowly nodding.

She runs to her pack, and pulls out her journal. She tears out the last page and scribbles her phone number before returning to him, holding it out.

“I, uhh, I can make international calls,” Hannah tells him, as he slowly takes the paper. “So if you,” her voice falters, “If you ever want to. to _call_ or you’re in America… I’m going to be living in New York in two weeks for the foreseeable future.”

His smile is warm again, not as broken as it has been the last hour. “I would enjoy that.”

He slips off his leather jacket, holding it to her. “New York gets cold.”

Taking the jacket, she smiles. Then she notices the bittersweet gleam of his eyes. Her smile falls. There was no way, still hung up on Sonja as he was, Lucian could have meant it when asking her to stay.

“She was a lucky woman.” Hannah says. “I hope one day, whoever the next person you love is, will know just how deeply you love.”

There’s a small shift on his face, as though thinking something completely unexpected to what he usually did. It’s gone in a blink, leaving them standing there.

“Sonja would have loved you. She didn’t have many real friends, and never female ones not looking for leverage.”

Hannah thinks about that. And she didn’t know much about the woman, but to have been enough of an influence to make Lucian this kind of man? She would have liked Sonja.

“If she likes puns, or at least puts up with my puns, we’d have been best friends.” Hannah swears.

“She’d egg-specially love food puns.”

Hannah snorts and laughs, covers her mouth quickly as embarrassment floods her system. Lucian is looking at her like she’s a true gem and Hannah can’t help but love this man.

And that’s what makes this so much harder, isn’t it?

More hot pressure pools behind her eyes and she sniffles. “I wish I didn’t have to leave.”

Lucian’s lips press flat at her words, and he looks unsure, then he steps closer to her and hugs her. He’s never hugged her and she melts into it, soaking up his warmth. He burned hotter than her, it seemed, and she loved that.

“It was foolish to think either of us could change our lives so suddenly.” He tells her. “It was foolish.”

Hannah presses her face to his chest, nodding a little.

She takes a deep breath, fortifying herself, before stepping back. “It’s never foolish to dream and hope for something more.”

“ _It’s never foolish to dream and hope for something more_ ,” her mom once told her. “ _So never stop being my little dreamer._ ”

Her mom had been delirious from lack of oxygen that day, lungs not working right even as her machine worked to give her air, before Hannah had realized what was wrong and called an ambulance. But the words, a few of Dawn’s clearest sentences that day after Hannah had tearfully admitted she dreamed too much, had stuck with her years down the road.

Lucian, hearing the words she had lived by and held close to heart, looked briefly lost, as though the idea of dreaming was impossible. She touches his cheek, feels the softness of his beard under her touch.

“I’ve had to be realistic my whole life, but it has _never_ stopped me from being a dreamer.” Iron builds her words up, setting the foundation of her life without telling him anything more than she already had shared. “And this may not be realistic, Lucian, but I can dream that in different circumstances, in a different universe, it was.”

She moves to brush back her hair, remembers its been braided out of her face by his careful fingers, and she smiles at him. “You are maybe my best dream yet.”

He takes one of her hands, so much smaller compared to his, and holds it. He looks at their hands, quiet for so long she thinks she’ll have to speak, when he finally does, tone laden with sadness, rasping, “I never thought to fall in love again.” Her lungs bind together, and she forgets how to breathe momentarily. Then they break open, and she’s trying to process his words as she chokes on despair and heartbreak. “But you, in little more than a week, reminded me how beautiful life could be.” He meets her eyes. “I hope you one day find someone who can make your dreams a reality, as you did mine.”

Hannah can’t come up with a response. She’s stuck staring at him, more awake now than she’s felt in twenty-three years of living.

Lucian brushes a knuckle across her cheek, whispering, “ _(5)Inima mea îţi aparţine._ ”

Hannah is the one who leaves first. She shakes the entire time, those words- in soft, near agonized Romanian- forever seared into the skin of her heart.

She checks into her flight on time, but she doesn’t feel all there on the plane, constantly looking for Lucian, constantly fighting this urge to tell her to go find him and stay.

She looks out her window, at the clouds around her, and thinks, Lucian in the forefront of her mind, “ _One day, my dreams will be a reality._ ”

* * *

 

End of _Traveling with Wolves_ ,  
To Be Continued in _Dancing with Mummies_

 

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to not use Google Translate and just googled common phrases in the languages below. If they're wrong, lemme know!
> 
> (1) I’m sorry. Excuse me.
> 
> (2) I can’t speak Hungarian well.
> 
> (3) Romanian: My heart calls to you. I do not know why.
> 
> (4) Norwegian: One beer, please.
> 
> (5) Romanian: My heart belongs to you.
> 
> \------  
> Okay so a couple months back I was answering "send me two fictional characters and I'll tell you which I'd rather date/marry" asks and amusewithaview, darling dear of my heart and trash can ships, made me choose between Ahkmenrah of NATM and Lucian of Underworld. I resolved this by choosing both because there was no fine print saying it had to be just one.
> 
> She then egged me on to write this, and the next three instlaments I have planned, for the "Monsters"-verse as I'm calling this.


End file.
